The Lost Hours

by Karen White

  “Grandmother?” I whispered.

  She didn’t move. I stayed on the edge of her bed for a long time, watching the shallow rise and fall of her chest with a growing sense of unease—the same feeling one gets upon leaving home for a long trip and knowing something has been forgotten.

  Finally, I stood and leaned over to kiss her cheek. I startled when her hand closed around my wrist and her eyes opened. “My box,” she said. “I put it in my box but now I can’t find it.”

  “What box?” I asked, remembering the smell of summer grass and the feel of dark earth in my hands and knowing the answer already.

  But she had closed her eyes again, her breathing settling into the reassuring rhythm of a peaceful sleep. I touched her cheek, vainly seeking a connection with this woman who had raised me, and wishing again that I had never read her letters or discovered the light blue baby’s sweater in the trunk.

  I didn’t even pause to change my clothes or shoes when I returned home. I did stop in the kitchen to gulp down two pain pills, not really bothering to wonder if I was doing so from habit or just from the need to soften the edges of reality for a while. Then I went directly to the gardening shed and pulled out my grandfather’s shovel, then made my way through to the back garden to the spot where I remembered burying my grandmother’s box.

  I considered for a moment calling George, but the thought of his overeager smile and his insistence that I think about my life made me hesitate. If I found that my back and knee wouldn’t allow me to use a shovel, then I’d take another pain pill before calling George for help.

  After swatting at the sand flies that had begun to swarm around my neck and ankles, I lifted the shovel high, stabbing the earth with the tip as I’d seen my grandfather do, and gritting at the wave of pain that grabbed my spine. I wasn’t used to doing more than walking around in my house and leaning over a computer desk at various libraries as I researched, despite the insistence of George, my grandfather, and my physical therapist that I be more active. Using my good leg, I pressed down with the heel of my foot and embedded the entire head of the shovel in the dusty ground of my back garden.

  Starting to feel the light-headedness I associated with my medication, the pain seemed to ebb, its edges soft and bubbly like that of an oncoming wave sliding onto shore. I wiped a bead of sweat that had begun to drip down my forehead, then lifted the shovel with a full load of dirt and dumped it behind me.

  It didn’t take long; the hole had only been as deep as the shallow box required. But by the time the shovel finally hit metal my blouse and pants clung to my skin with sweat and I had begun to see spots before my eyes.

  I knelt in the sparse weeds beside the gaping wound in the earth and reached inside for the tin box, my fingernails scraping red clay as my fingers found their way around it. Impatiently I lifted it out of the hole, eager to have it over with, and relieved that it wasn’t too heavy to lift by myself. I brushed off the top, then lifted it open, the old hinges hardly protesting.

  I sat back with the box on my lap, the unearthed dirt and small rocks clinging to my pants, and I looked inside. A bundle of raw-edged scrapbook pages, stacked beneath a worn and cracked front cover and wrapped in a frayed black grosgrain ribbon, lay nestled inside. On top of the pile, as if placed as an afterthought, was a framed sepia-colored photo of three young girls, two unrecognizable but the blond one uncannily familiar. I wasn’t sure at first. In the photo, the girl had a sparkle in her eye as if she knew a secret and her smile was full of mischief. But the wide eyes and slightly snubbed nose were definitely my grandmother’s; I recognized them mostly because I saw the same eyes and nose every time I looked in a mirror.

  I pried off the stiff cardboard backing, not feeling the pain when my nail tore back. Pulling the frame in closer to block the sun with my shadow, I peered down at the back of the photograph where someone had scrawled in amateur calligraphy three names: Lillian Harrington, Josephine Montet, and Annabelle O’Hare. I startled, recognizing the first name as the name on the letters my grandmother had written. My eyes flickered down to the words written beneath the names: Dum vita est, spes est—Cicero. I frowned, recalling the quote written on the wall of my high school Latin teacher’s classroom and often repeated by her. I stared at the words for a long moment, remembering that my grandmother had written the same ones in her letter to Lillian. Where there is life, there is hope. I had never understood its relevance and still didn’t.

  I lifted out the pages and gave them a cursory flip, my perusal slowing as I noticed the brutally torn edges of each page, as if they’d been ripped from the spine with force.

  Sweat dripped onto a page and I stood to bring the bundle in the house for closer inspection. I must have stood too suddenly; my head swam and my vision blurred as I lost my grip on the pages and fell to my knees. I put my head down to my chest and waited for my head to clear before opening my eyes again.

  The scrapbook pages lay scattered on the bare earth and encroaching weeds, the pages fluttering like moths. Crawling on my hands and knees I began gathering them up, shaking off the dirt before stacking them. As I lifted a page that had been nearly torn in half, I spotted a small newspaper clipping that was stuck facedown to the back of it. Yellowed glue with paper remnants coating its top clung to the side facing out as if the clipping had once been glued between two scrapbook pages.

  Carefully, I pulled it off and read it, feeling my skin growing colder and colder despite the pressing heat of the summer sun.

  The article was from the Savannah Morning News and dated September 8, 1939. It read:

  The body of an unidentified Negro male infant was pulled from the Savannah River this morning around eight o’clock a.m. by postman Lester Agnew on his morning rounds. The body was found naked with no identifying marks and has been turned over to the medical examiner to determine the cause of death.

  I felt ill, either from the pain pills or the heat. Or maybe it was from facing a past that perhaps would have been better remaining hidden. I lay down, pressing my face against the cool earth. I tasted dirt and weeds and stubborn grass but I didn’t have the energy to turn my head. I stayed that way for a long time until my stomach settled and my head stopped spinning. I opened my eyes and pulled myself up on my elbow, catching sight of the upturned tin box, where something glinted from an inside corner. Slowly, I reached out my hand and pulled it toward me, unsure of what I was looking at.

  It was a necklace of sorts, with a thick filigree chain halfway filled with a mismatched assortment of charms that bore little resemblance to one another. They reminded me of the angel charm Mr. Morton had given me and I sat up to examine the necklace more closely, clenching my eyes shut for a moment to stop the spinning. I dangled the charms in my hand, studying them and wondering why most of the chain had been left empty. I fingered the figures like a blind woman uncoding Braille, trying to read the stories behind them until I reached the last one.

  I looked down into my palm and saw a tiny gold baby carriage, its spokes delicately molded, and wondered what all of these charms meant. The sand flies continued their invisible attack as I stared down at this buried treasure, biting me without mercy and as persistent as old grief.

  The necklace slipped through my fingers and into my lap and I inexplicably began to cry. I wasn’t sure if my tears were for the old woman whose stories remained untold, or for the girl I had once been who had believed herself invincible but who had grown into a woman who no longer believed in anything at all.

  CHAPTER 4

  Lillian Harrington-Ross sat at the window in her sitting room and stared at the letter in her age-spotted hands, deliberately overlooking the fingers that resembled more the knotted trunks of live oaks than the graceful fingers of a woman who’d once taken so much pride in her hands.

  The sound of hooves beating on dried, packed earth drew her attention out the window to the lunge ring, where her grandson,Tucker, had brought the recently rescued cherry bay gelding, the vivid scar bisecting the horse�
�s flank appearing like a caution sign. Tucker held the lunge whip out, expertly guiding the reluctant gelding around the ring, coaxing secrets from the animal’s unknown past.

  Lillian rarely opened her blinds, preferring the darkness, but she’d wanted to watch her grandson and the new horse to surreptitiously study them both to see if either one of them showed any sign of healing. She sat back in her chair and looked out at her grandson through half-closed eyes, seeing another man in the shimmering heat, another man who’d known how to speak to horses and who’d had no tolerance for broken things. She let her eyelids shut completely, feeling the tremor in her old hands, imagining that it had been the power of a horse felt through the pull of the reins. But that had all been so very long ago. And she wondered again how she had let something so precious exit her life so easily. Like the moment a parent realizes their child is too big to be carried yet not remembering how long it had been since the last time.

  Dum vita est, spes est. The letter shook in her hands as the words danced in front of her eyes. Where there is life, there is hope. Was it really possible to have once been so young as to believe in hope? And in friendships that were meant to last a lifetime? But it was more than the passage of years that had made her a cynical old woman; grief and loss could poison more than just time.

  Peering again through her bifocals at the letter, Lillian read it for the third time.

  Dear Mrs. Harrington-Ross,

  I’m not sure if you received my previous three letters. In case you haven’t, I’m Piper Mills, the granddaughter of Annabelle O’Hare Mercer. I have recently discovered pages from a scrapbook that belonged to her along with a photo of my grandmother, you and a girl named Josephine among other things.

  You may or may not be aware that my grandmother passed away last month after having battled with Alzheimer’s for many years. Her scrapbook has left me with many questions and I’m eager to speak with you to help me answer as many as I can.

  I can be reached at the number below and would be happy to either speak with you over the phone or set up an appointment to meet with you at Asphodel Meadows.

  I’ve never met you although I lived with my grandparents for many years. I’m left to assume that any friendship you had with Annabelle must have ended some time ago. Please know that the reason or fault is of no interest to me. I’m simply trying to get to know the person my grandmother was before I was born, and perhaps to find some meaning to the death of a woman who I feel I never really knew at all.

  I look forward to hearing from you.

  Sincerely,

  Piper Mills

  Lillian sighed, her chest tightening. So Annabelle is gone. The years seemed to rush at her like an incoming tide, the memories like a picture show in vivid color, each one moving forward like a sewn hem, and each stitch a mouthful of grief. But never regret. The one thing she attributed her longevity to was her stubborn ability to never confuse grief with regret.

  There was a soft rap on the door behind her before it was opened. Lillian smelled the dust and the sweat and horse before Tucker spoke. Her bones and her eyesight might not be as strong as they had once been, but her sense of smell had not yet deserted her. She closed her eyes again, remembering the man who’d once carried the same scent and found herself smiling softly.

  Tucker kissed her on the cheek and she looked up at him, seeing more of her son-in-law than her daughter in his olive skin and nearly black hair. He had her late husband’s height and broad shoulders and her own dark green eyes. But his aura of regret was his own, and settled on his shoulders like an ill-fitting coat.

  He moved to the sideboard and poured himself a tall glass of iced tea. “Can I get anything for you, Malily?” His childhood name for her had stuck, and had suited Lillian at the time as she’d once considered herself too young to be called “Grandmother.”

  “Sherry,” she said, watching his eyes.

  He didn’t even pause as he unstopped the decanter and filled a small sherry glass to the top. “I’m sure it’s five o’clock somewhere,” he said softly.

  Tucker crossed the room and handed her the glass, then remained standing. Although long since grown, he knew better than to sit on Lillian’s furniture when he was dirty from working outside.

  After taking a long drink of his iced tea, he said, “That new horse is a tough one. He’s got a big personality and the strength to match it. Who knows what kind of abuse he’s gone through, though.”

  Lillian took a sip of the sherry, already thinking about how soon she could have another, and turned to the window seeing past the rings and stables, beyond the green pastures, and saw through years to three little girls sitting atop a pasture gate. She turned back to Tucker, noticing his fingers wrapped around his iced-tea glass and how they were no longer the hands of a doctor. She thought of the horse with his scars and wondered if having them so visible wasn’t preferable to the hidden kind where nobody knew how to avoid the parts that still hurt.

  “I need you to do me a favor.” Lillian avoided Tucker’s eyes by taking another sip from her sherry, welcoming the numbness that seeped into her fingertips.

  He sounded wary. “What is it?”

  She paused for a moment, weighing her words. “I need you to write a letter for me. The granddaughter of an old friend of mine, a Piper Mills, wants to meet with me to discuss aspects of her grandmother’s past.” Lillian regarded Tucker before continuing. “As you know, I gave all of my papers to Susan for her research, and I don’t have the heart to go search for them now nor do I expect you to do it. It’s too soon. . . .” She looked away, unable to watch the color drain from his face. “And I’m afraid my memory isn’t as good as it once was, and without the papers I doubt I can recall anything with any accuracy. I’d rather just tell this Piper that I’m not available. I was thinking that if you wrote the letter, she would assume I was too ill to speak with her and leave it at that.”

  Tucker returned to the sideboard and poured himself another glass from the frosted pitcher of iced tea. A drop of condensation dripped on the mahogany surface and he quickly wiped up the spot with a napkin before his grandmother had a chance to say anything. “Piper Mills. The name rings a bell.”

  Lillian took a deep breath, wrinkling the letter in her hands as she balled them into fists in her lap. “About six years ago she was regarded as one of eventing’s sporting elite and an Olympic hopeful. The rumor was her grandfather had already bought plane tickets to Athens.” She smiled ruefully. “Then at Kentucky she fell from her horse and he landed on her. Nobody knows for sure, but they say it was her fault, that she knew something was wrong when there was still time to pull back but she continued into the jump. She broke her back, shattered her leg and a few ribs, and punctured her lung. They had to euthanize her horse. She hasn’t ridden since.”

  Tucker eyed his grandmother. “I remember now. I thought she died.”

  Lillian looked down at her glass. “She probably wished that she had.”

  Tucker turned away and Lillian regretted her words. But it was so hard to avoid pressing on his bruises. Since Susan’s death, talking to him was like walking with two broken legs; anywhere you stepped it was going to hurt.

  Tucker stared outside at the empty lunge ring. “If you were friends with her grandmother, why haven’t our paths ever crossed?”

  Lillian lifted her empty glass for Tucker to refill. “Because her grandmother and I ceased being friends a long, long time ago.”

  He took her glass but set it on the sideboard and she knew better than to argue with him about it.

  “So why now? Why does she want to talk to you now?”

  Lillian closed her eyes and leaned her head back, the warmth of the sun from the windows feeling like poison ivy pricking at her skin. “Because Annabelle—her grandmother—has recently died. I suppose it’s not unusual for those left behind to want answers to questions they never thought to ask when they had the time.”

  AvoidingTucker’s troubled eyes, Lillian pressed
on. “Those papers—the ones I gave Susan—they’ve caused us so much grief. I don’t think I could stand to have someone else go through them.”

  Tucker returned his glass to the sideboard, the crystal clunking hard against the wood. “I’ll take care of it today.” He crossed the room to kiss her on her cheek again. “I’ve got to go. We’ve got a truckload of hay and shavings coming in this morning and I want to make sure it’s all good before they unload it.”

  When he straightened, she reached for his hand and squeezed it, hoping he would accept this mute apology for saying Susan’s name aloud. He squeezed back, then left. As Lillian watched him go she thought again of the damaged horse and its unwillingness to trust and realized how very much alike the wounded animal and her grandson really were. She fingered the gold charm around her neck, the one she’d worn since she was ten years old, and as she listened to Tucker’s footsteps fading down the hall, Lillian wondered if she was the only one who could still see his scars because she knew exactly where to look.

  The bells of St. John’s were ringing the hour as I tried to bury my face deeper and deeper into the cool cotton of my pillowcase. I lost track of the number of times they rang, but thought it was more than ten. Alarmed, I kicked off the covers, remembering that the Goodwill truck was scheduled to stop by before noon to collect the bags of my grandfather’s clothing, which I hadn’t yet collected or sorted. I’d donated all of my grandmother’s clothing to the home where she’d lived the last years of her life, not being able to bring myself to go through it all and sort it. Anything of value had been left behind when she’d moved sixteen years ago, and anything she’d obtained since was nothing I wanted to hold on to.